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American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, has sold U.S. and foreign government agencies more than 500 backscatter x-ray scanners mounted in vans that can be driven past neighboring vehicles to see their contents, Joe Reiss, a vice president of marketing at the company told me in an interview. While the biggest buyer of AS&E’s machines over the last seven years has been the Department of Defense operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Reiss says law enforcement agencies have also deployed the vans to search for vehicle-based bombs in the U.S.

“This product is now the largest selling cargo and vehicle inspection system ever,” says Reiss.

Wowsers. That’s creepy. What’s even creepier? This. Detecting “illegal immigrants” and drugs in vehicles? What do they see that they don’t report?

One can only imagine the “terror baby” Republicans driving these trucks around or the anti-marijuana folks scanning for DFHs. I await the fourth amendment interpretation under the Roberts court.